


A Light Like Love

by chipperdyke



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Daddy Emma Swan, F/F, Happy endings and all, Magical Pregnancy, Second curse or is it the third?, Semi-established swanqueen, Wicked crossover, magic baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-25 08:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12032484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chipperdyke/pseuds/chipperdyke
Summary: Emma seeks Regina out after returning to Storybrooke from New York, but Regina didn't return from the Enchanted Forest alone...





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some light-weight trigger tags for referenced past f/m rape and the idea of abortion.

The damndest thing of it was that they were just fucking to begin with. Still, the first place Emma went to, after checking in at Granny's with Henry and going by Mary Margaret's to get _that_ unfortunate shock, was Regina's.

There she found an angry mob. It was past dark, but maybe they were carrying torches instead of flashlights because fire was their intention. A conflagration meant to destroy the mayor's house - Henry's house, although he didn't remember - or Regina herself, because she was the villain in every single possible iteration of this story.

Which maybe made sense here, except what would Regina have sacrificed for this fresh, new curse? What did she love more than Henry? Lots must have changed in the past year, while Emma was in New York pining for something she couldn't name, and everyone else was in the Enchanted Forest _moving the fuck on._

But that? Regina moving on from Henry? It didn't seem possible.

Emma parked across the street and vaulted out of her car, having unpleasant flashbacks to the last angry mob she'd repelled from the mayor's mansion. She'd really thought that apple turnover was the end of it between her and Regina, but she'd defended her because she was still the sheriff. At the time she was running on adrenaline and a faint sense of justice and rule of law, like, guys, you really _can't_ tar and feather someone right under my nose. Even if you've decided she's your queen of evil, or… you know, The Evil Queen, the fairest of them all, though not in skin tone per se. Or whatever it's supposed to be.

Emma made it to the very back of the crowd before the mayor's door opened and there was Regina, totally terrifying and gorgeous as usual - with a - with -

Regina shouted to the suddenly silent crowd, “I didn't cast this curse.”

“Why should we believe you?” “You've been locked up since the curse hit!” “We want to get back to the Enchanted Forest!”

Emma should be pushing through the crowd right now, to Regina's side, but she was stock-still, frozen. Unprepared for this second betrayal of the day.

“Go back to your homes,” Regina growled, and a totally harmless shockwave of magic burst from her hand.

Totally harmless. Everyone cowered away, murmuring words like _magic,_ except Emma, and Regina saw her standing there. Their eyes met for a long moment.

And then Regina spun away, baby clutched to her chest, and Emma started sprinting to try to catch that door before it closed on her.

She didn't catch it, but Regina did leave it unlocked for her, watching Emma silently at the top of the landing as she burst through.

Emma locked the door behind her back, muscle memory still intact after this long. She couldn't count the number of times Regina had pushed her against this door. They hadn't even gotten past the foyer.

Maybe she could. Five times? Just once after the curse was broken. The first curse. Not this one.

Emma kept her eyes on Regina's. Maybe if she ignored the baby they just didn't have to talk about it at all.

“You're back,” Regina breathed. “Henry?”

Emma nodded slowly. “Hook gave me a potion and I remember everything. But there wasn't enough for two. We'll get his memories back, though, I promise.”

Regina was smiling tremulously, like she was going to cry. “Will you come in?” she asked Emma, and Emma trailed her into the living room, trying to see through the loose sweater and slacks she wore because she was a pervert with a MILF obsession, obviously.

There was a crib there, but Regina didn't put the baby in the crib. She held it, and Emma sat at the far edge of the couch. Pissed, probably, based on how her chest felt right now, but her hands were shaking and cold. She put them under her legs.

“David and Mary Margaret said you guys can't remember anything about the past year. Do you know who cast the curse? Any clues?”

Regina said, “I am as clueless as the rest of us.” The baby in Regina's arms cooed, and Regina shifted her so that Emma could just glimpse her face. Emma didn't know anything about babies but this baby did not look anything like Regina.

So it was a blond guy Emma needed to kill. That narrowed the list a lot. She breathed deeply, and Regina caught her staring.

Dammit. Avoidance tactic failed. “You adopted another baby?” Emma said hopefully.

Regina was shaking her head before Emma stopped talking. “She's mine. It shouldn't have been possible. Long ago, I - made sure that would never happen to me.”

“It did,” Emma said dully.

“Yes.” Regina narrowed her eyes at Emma, and Emma hated herself for a million reasons. She'd thought Regina wasn't sleeping with anyone else, all this time, but maybe she was. Maybe she just hadn't had anyone else who wanted her - as if. Maybe it was just after she sent Emma away for her miserable ending in New York. Emma hadn't ever asked her not to. Regina had never asked for, or offered, anything but sex.

Emma stood up and walked around the back of the loveseat, leaning against it. She registered vaguely that there were no more shadowy shapes or torches outside the front door. “You've moved on from us,” she said, trying to make it about Henry.

Regina was shaking her head. “I could never.”

“Everyone's moved on,” Emma said bitterly.

“Emma…” Regina was crying _again,_ which was way too many damn tears for someone who just ruined everything.

“Stop crying,” Emma said. “You don't get to cry. Do you know what it was like without - anybody else, in New York? Do you know how much we missed you, and here you're all fucking like bunnies and having a million babies…”

“You're upset about Mary Margaret,” Regina said softly.

“And upset for Henry! And -” Emma gulped. This was insanely unfair. “When I took the potion and Hook said you were all back here, I felt like I could breathe again, because - I wanted to be here -” Emma couldn't finish. _Because it stopped mattering sometime in that year what everybody else thought about us, and I was gonna take Henry_ home, _and we'd finally be happy._ Of course that would never have happened, but a year and another lifetime’s memories had definitely put her arrangement with Regina in perspective. While embroiled within it, Emma felt lust and guilt equally. From without, it looked like something really, really fucking great that Emma probably wouldn't ever find again and should try not to ruin too badly.

And now Regina wasn't available. Of course, it would work out like that, because Emma's life was cursed, probably some kind of karma for fucking the wife of her deceased grandfather or something, not that Emma had known it when this whole thing got started.

“I don't know who the father is. And I don't care.” Regina stood and tried to approach Emma, and Emma skittered around the edge of the room to get away from her and that baby. “Emma,” Regina said, her voice low, and then she put the baby down in the crib and Emma finally let her take her hands. “You came here for what you always want,” she whispered, and Emma's heart leapt into her throat.

“I wanted to check to be sure you were OK,” Emma lied. She had just barely enough time to get the words out before Regina put her hand behind her neck and their lips met.

Emma turned into boneless goo of the unsexiest sort. She wrapped her arms around Regina and together, they moved from desperation to passion, to tenderness, and then Emma slipped her hand up Regina's shirt and up Regina's stomach and she knew why Regina was so certain that this was her own baby, because her body had changed in that way, and Emma's throat was burning with jealousy that anybody else had ever had Regina, and that she had carried the seed of some man inside her and ripened with his baby for nine damn months while Emma was somewhere _else,_ not with Regina. She wanted the baby gone. This was hers.

She gripped Regina's hips, and Regina breathed harshly and bared her neck to Emma, and then Emma stepped away.

Regina was stormy, eyes flashing like they had when she was just the mayor and everything had been simple. Like anything had ever been simple.

“Why do you care?” Regina hissed. “Are you so determined to take everything from me, that when I have found happiness without you, you would like to take it from me, too?”

“Like you would have taken me with you to the Enchanted Forest if you could. You just gave us up, and here you are, back again. You didn't think we'd try to find a way to get to you guys? Neal escaped the World Without Magic. He found a bean in the Enchanted Forest. Hell, fucking Hook got a magic bean! You're always so intent on your own misery.”

“I was giving you what you wanted,” Regina said. Emma's voice had disturbed the baby, and she started fussing. Regina's eyes flickered to the crib, but she didn't turn away.

Emma clenched her fists. “That was your fairytale, Regina, not mine.”

“It sure as hell wasn't,” Regina growled. “If you do not want to see me, at least allow me to see my son.”

Emma sighed. “Lunch at Granny's, tomorrow. Can you find a babysitter?” She scowled at the infant, who had begun bawling.

“I will try,” Regina said, and Emma closed the door to the sound of Regina describing Emma to her baby daughter. It wasn't flattering.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How does this feel so cleansing and relaxing?
> 
> Oh right. Nothing bad ever happens. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

They waited long enough after 12:30 that Henry started to get antsy. He complained of a stomach ache, to which Emma responded, “I guess next time we won't get a shake before lunch,” which shut him up nicely. He occupied himself thereafter by watching the variety of characters who filtered through Granny’s and asking questions that essentially boiled down to, “Why does everyone look like a freak here?”

Regina was never late, and this was always the time they met for lunch. Emma went and asked Ruby for Regina's cell number, which of course wasn't programmed into the updated-to-the-21st-Century-curse phone that Ruby had. Emma’d already rung Regina's house phone about fifty times, and she was ready to just get in the car and drive around town looking for her when she appeared at the door.

“Regina!” Emma breathed in relief. Halfway to the door her abrupt happiness was overwhelmed by the doom and gloom of the night before, because naturally Regina had brought the demon spawn with her. The diner had fallen silent at Regina's arrival, but started whispering when Emma reached Regina.

“Emma,” Regina responded breathlessly. She was flushed, and it was fall but it wasn't that cold out. “I -”

She looked beyond Emma to their booth, and said, “After lunch we need to talk.”

“Let’s just get through lunch first,” Emma grumbled, following her to the booth. The baby looked at Emma over Regina's shoulder, and her dumb baby face split in a huge, toothless grin. Emma counted backwards from October. January? Pan’s curse had hit in October of last year, but this baby was not a newborn. Emma might not know babies, but that much was impossible to get wrong.

Henry was looking up at them expectantly. “Hey, Hen,” Emma started.

“It's good to meet you,” Regina said to Henry. “I'm the mayor of this town, but you may call me Regina.” Her voice was strangled in her throat.

“Remember when I said we lived here when you were a baby?” Emma added, to try to align their stories as much as possible, before it was too late. “We lived with Regina then.”

Henry gave Regina a small smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Are you having lunch with us?”

“That's the plan,” Emma sighed, and went over to Henry's side of the booth. He scooted over, and Regina sat and turned the demon baby around so that she was facing them, too.

“Cute baby,” Henry observed. “What’s her name?”

“I have no idea,” Regina told him. “What do you think we should call her?”

Ruby materialized. “Granny says to tell you we don't serve people who cast curses or steal babies here.”

Emma said, “We want three burgers and a Caesar salad.” Just to cover all the bases.

Ruby rolled her eyes and drifted away, casting glances over her shoulder. She was less subtle than the rest of the diner. Emma became monstrously irritated.

The baby in Regina's arms flung her rattle across the table, and Henry picked it up, studying it with a furrowed brow.

Regina asked him, “What is it like living in New York?”

“Fine, I guess.” Henry shrugged. “I like it way better than Denver, or Tucson, and definitely better than Houston.” He looked up at Regina. “How old was I when we left Storybrooke?” He looked back at the rattle.

Emma spoke quickly. “I told you, two.”

“And you were, like, dating?”

Regina visibly paled. “Not really,” Emma told him, hoping he would drop it. He had no memories of people she'd dated, which was a nice perk of Regina's fake memories.

Regina's memories, Emma realized with a startle. That wasn't something she'd consciously thought before this, but Regina had patched her own life together with what she'd known of Emma's life, or maybe her spell had done it, but in neither version was there a romantic interest.

Which suited Emma just fine, except for the blatant evidence that things had changed. The evidence that was staring Emma down from across the table, a faint hint of the smile still on her face, blue eyes sparkling like she had no idea that she was the bane of Emma's existence.

The bane in question suddenly flung herself forward with a yell, reaching for Henry's hands. He jumped and handed the rattle back to her. She settled back into Regina's arms with a happy baby sound and Emma scowled at her, watching how Regina allowed her to lean against the table but watched her with hands ready to provide support, and then relaxed as the baby sat back against her. Damn thing was essentially already walking around.

“I guess that would've made you the _only_ person Mom’s ever dated,” Henry observed. “Are you married?” he followed up without missing a beat.

Regina's face was flickering through distress (“Mom”) to blankness (“married”). “I was once, long ago, but my husband died.”

Leopold, the ghost that had left such a distinct imprint on Regina that Emma had been absolutely certain that Regina had been abused as a child before she found out the  complicated and mixed truth of it. Emma gritted her teeth.

“Oh,” was all Henry said about it. “How about Lucy?”

He ignored Emma’s confused look, focusing with wide, earnest eyes on Regina.

“Oh,” Regina laughed, after a pause. “Lucy,” she said, turning the baby’s shoulders a little to look at her.

The creature looked back up at her with a wide-mouthed exclamation, and Emma finally got it.

“Like 'I Love Lucy,’” Henry said. “Because she smiles like Lucy, don't you think?”

That was pretty straightforward. Emma frowned, but Regina said, “What a perfect name,” which seemed to settle the matter.

Ruby brought the food, first two burgers which she presented to Emma and Henry, and then with a short sigh, the third burger and the salad.

“Are all babies that happy?” Henry asked after he'd worked through half the burger.

Emma sniggered. “When you were a baby you wouldn't stop crying.” She glanced up, and caught Regina's surprised eyes.

“He cried for you, too?” Regina said, looking like the words escaped her without her explicit permission.

Henry looked between them with a raised eyebrow, and Emma bit her lip and nodded, looking down at her empty plate. Regina didn't know that Emma's memories were hers? Had she just forgotten?

Emma ruffled his hair and he ducked out of her grasp. “Good thing you grew out of it.”

“What do you do after school, Henry?” Regina asked him.

Henry spun a fry in his ketchup, the half-burger forgotten, and Emma watched him with interest. If he said he played softball and read a lot, he was trying to impress her. If he said he played video games most of the time, he was being honest.

“I've been re-reading the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” he said, and Emma grinned happily at him, certain she had just narrowly avoided a slow and agonizing death.

Regina was apparently fully familiar with the seventh-grade reading curriculum, and the next ten minutes were a furious back-and-forth inquisition, which Henry seemed to genuinely enjoy. Or maybe he was just basking in the intensity of Regina's attention, which he must have recognized and missed, because Emma had never excelled at conversations with him that went beyond household logistics and team tactics on Battlefield 4, even when she thought she was his only parent.

Whatever. Emma was relegated to the social wasteland of the booth with the spawn of the devil, who examined her while sucking with absolute determination on the end of the rattle. The rattle with distinct tooth marks, so… yeah, Henry's old rattle.

What a fucking weird curse. Emma paid the bill and sent him upstairs to “read,” wishing she felt less like he'd left her to the wolves.

Regina led her down the street silently, bouncing the abomination, until Emma almost decided that she'd say something. Everything she thought of seemed too much like a confession/accusation, though, so Emma did what she did best and stayed silent.

Finally, they reached the nearest park, and Regina settled on a bench. The demon was sleeping in her arms. Emma stayed standing, hovering really, until Regina gave her a look and she flopped gracelessly down.

“What did you want to talk about?” Emma asked her, and Regina turned serious brown eyes on her that made her feel like she was drowning. She looked away.

“First, I need to ask you a question.” Regina seemed to steel herself in the periphery of Emma's vision, taking a deep breath. “Do you regret what happened in Neverland?”

Emma turned toward Regina in shock. They never, _never_ talked about regret. They never talked about anything that happened between them, not whispered confessionals, nothing but questions and sometimes instructions and always wordless sounds, and then silence. They were different people in the daytime, even when Emma fell asleep before she made it home, even when she didn't wake up before Regina and leave in silence - even when they woke up with the morning light on their faces, and it seemed like Regina's eyes were speaking words that wouldn't - could never - emerge from her mouth.

That had only happened during the first curse, when Henry still lived with Regina. After Neverland, during that week that they had a Henry that wasn't Henry, they were so wrapped up in each other and the secret life they'd rediscovered at night and never, never exposed that secret to the light of day.

And Neverland felt like more of the same, except with magic springing forth from Emma in a fountain like it had built up all that time and was just waiting to alight on Regina's skin and bathe her in the brightest light, a light like baptism and new beginnings, a light like Emma felt, a light like -

Whatever. Emma looked away from her and said, “No.”


	3. Chapter 3

The water lapped at the shore of Skull Rock. It was the loudest sound Regina could hear on the tiny island, on the far side of a barrier spell away from her son, trapped with the two people she loathed the most.  
  
With Rumpelstiltskin gone, Neal avoided her gaze, sitting loose-limbed on a nearby rock and watching Emma pace along the narrow shoreline. Regina glared at him. Why hadn’t he just stayed dead?  
  
“The moon,” Emma said, turning directly to Regina. “Without the moon, we wouldn’t cast shadows.”  
  
Regina nearly growled in frustration. “Good idea,” she said. She rested her hand briefly on her stomach, where a tiny, dwindling piece of Emma’s magic had taken hold inside her, and wondered.  
  
She’d never imagined wanting to carry a child. The idea had only inspired dread in her, the dread of being discovered by her mother, and later, the dread of being touched by a man with cold hands and dead eyes, and being changed permanently by the experience. To never conceive, to be forever childless, was far more preferable than the alternative.  
  
But after Regina enchanted Pan’s trick map and failed once more - because everything was about Emma - because Emma was the hero, and Regina's solution was doomed regardless of whether it was smarter - Emma had kissed her like she thought she could find the map’s answer in Regina's body, and Regina had given herself back over to Emma with a sense of relief, and inevitability.  
  
She’d imagined that Emma might come back to her after every new confrontation. After the apple turnover and when Emma packed a suitcase full of Henry's clothes, after Cora and Greg who was Owen, after Regina was defeated and destroyed again and again. But she had never come, and Regina had completely given up on Emma and thought only about Henry, saving Henry, being who Henry wanted her to be. She'd surmounted her bitterness and taken whatever time with Henry that Emma had been willing to offer her, and through that slow process she had given Henry up to Emma.  
  
And then Emma had kissed her again. Her soul and her heart poured into every touch, as it had from the first time, with apples raining down on their heads and the broken branches of Regina's apple tree under their feet. During that first year Emma had settled herself inside Regina's body and had become insurmountable, an obstacle to Regina's happiness even as she fulfilled every longing that Regina had forgotten she had. After the first time, Regina had never considered the option of another lover. Graham was utterly forgotten in her whirlwind Savior with a love brighter than a thousand suns and just as scorching.  
  
But in Neverland, Emma's magic exploded between them, blanketing their bodies as they strained to merge fully. Maybe it was because Emma had no control over her own magic, or maybe it was because Emma's magic was true love magic and when Emma loved Regina it was supposed to be there, too, and now it finally was. If Regina had doubted Emma’s feelings before, the eruption of magic had assuaged that doubt.  
  
Not that it mattered what Emma felt, only what she did, and maybe love was not enough to repair what Regina had done to Emma and her family, or what Emma had done to Regina in retribution.  
  
And afterward, the magic disappeared into Regina's skin and Emma put her hand over Regina's, and Regina had felt the stirring of something, of Emma, inside her. For the rest of that day she'd tried to ignore it.  
  
But that night, she'd touched her stomach and felt it fading. The sense of loss was nearly suffocating. So she'd stood and gone to Emma, whose eyes were still open even though they had all laid down an hour before, and Emma followed her into the jungle and kissed her, and touched her gently and asked her what she wanted, because Emma always asked. When Regina told her, she slipped her fingers under the waistband of Regina's pants and Regina drank her lips and her fingers eagerly, parched and ready, always, for what Emma offered her.

Afterward, the light inside Regina was brighter and stronger than ever, and Regina determined that if it was a baby, she would keep it. 

After that, she hadn’t needed to seek Emma out. Emma had come to her. Sometimes she told her parents that they were practicing magic, which was true, to a varying extent. Sometimes she didn’t say anything to them. Regina didn’t need to answer to them, and offered no explanation at all.  
  
When Emma went off after Neal and Regina continued to look for Henry, the light faded in small degrees until it was barely flickering. She had considered going back to Emma. Should she tell Emma what she suspected had happened when they’d first slept together in Neverland? If Emma’s love had left a child inside Regina, and she told Emma as much, she would risk that this second child, like her first, would be taken from her by Snow’s dogged legacy.  
  
But if she didn't tell Emma, could she keep the child alive with her magic? She tried, for nearly a week, and still the light continued to fade. It felt like any moment, the light would fade away completely. If this was her baby, she was about to lose it.  
  
Then she and Rumpelstiltskin had come across Emma and the rest. She'd tried to pull Emma aside but Neal was glued to her and she couldn't explain why she needed Emma’s touch when the end was so close, when Henry was nearly found. She would lose this baby just because she could not find the words to tell Emma what was happening.  
  
“I will need your help,” Regina told Emma.  
  
“Doing what?” Emma said, brow crinkled and doe eyes soft and confused.  
  
“In moving the moon,” Regina told her. “Stand behind me.” Emma did, and Regina took her hands and wrapped them around her stomach, and Emma buried her face in Regina's neck and then Emma's magic was flowing through Regina in a torrent. Regina was certain that Emma could feel the child under her hands, but Emma had never said anything about it at all.  
  
After that, the light did not fade again. Regina took a pregnancy test in Storybrooke when they returned to the town, just to be sure. She had not yet decided what to do when Pan’s curse made the decision for her, and she said goodbye to Emma for what she thought was the final time.

* * *

“You don't regret Neverland? Even though it could have destroyed your relationship with your mother and with the family you lost?” Regina's voice was clipped, sharp, like she found Emma's denial hard to believe.

“You know what?” Emma stood, no longer hesitant or afraid. “I can see you found your happy ending without me. And Henry too. You know? I thought it might be different, but it's always the same with you. Nights I should always regret, but I never have. And you know what you always offered me?”

“No, Emma,” Regina said fiercely. She stood, and the baby in her arms woke suddenly, wailing. “What is it you think I offered you?”

“Never mind,” Emma said. “Whatever, Regina. Take that _thing,_ and leave us all alone.”

The warmth that had been in Regina's eyes turned flat with ire. “Alright, Emma,” she said. “I will.”

She and the baby disappeared in a puff of purple smoke, and for about ten seconds Emma thought she was rid of her forever.

Except it was impossible to avoid Regina. Regina was the only one who might be able to recreate the memory potion, an unfortunate fact that Mary Margaret emphasized, her arm held tight around her stomach and her eyes overly concerned.

David said, “You have to get her help, Emma. People have been disappearing from town. Neal is still missing. If there's anybody who can help us now, it's her, Emma.”

“Yeah, right,” Emma said. It seemed like the only emotion left for her was irritation. “Regina doesn't want to help us. She's got that - toddler - and you know she just cares about herself.”

“She cares about Henry, Emma,” Mary Margaret said.

“That's right,” Emma said. She stood up and started pacing. “She wants to keep him here, in Storybrooke. Maybe she's the one making people disappear. She is just - don't you think if she had a way to get back here, she wouldn't have done that to us?”

“Done what, Emma?” David was quietly intense. “She was giving you your happy ending.”

“Without her!” Emma breathed slowly.

David sat back, giving his wife a look. Mary Margaret spoke first. “You wanted your happy ending to be with her?”

“I don't know!” Emma walked over to the window, surveying the bare trees of Storybrooke approaching winter. “I was always missing something, there.”

“Your family,” David supplied.

“I guess so,” Emma said. She looked back at them. Two people who wanted to be everything for her. A mother and father who were overflowing with adoration.

Not the family she had always wished to have, these _kids._  And not the family she had begun to imagine having, before that apple turnover destroyed any chance of it for her. “I'll ask her for help with the memory potion. I bet she'll know. She always does.”

“Good,” Mary Margaret said, misty-eyed. “The sooner we can recover our memories, the better.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, thinking only of Henry's memories, and the life she'd given him by giving him up. The life that Regina’s awful child would have without ever supposing she'd have anything else. 

Something like the kind of family she actually wanted for herself, not recreating something that was already lost, but making something new with a woman who had dark flashing eyes and murderous heels and a smile that always said, "Get the hell away from what's mine."

Just a little while ago, Emma had thought that something was  _her._ And now she was usurped by a faceless man that Regina didn't care about, but might soon. The minute she got her memories back. The minute she found him here, in Storybrooke. 

"I'll ask her," Emma said, clutching the vial tightly in her hand and wishing to God she had the selfishness to toss it into the pavement before it completed her ruination.


	4. Chapter 4

Everyone stores their trauma in different ways. Emma found that out a long time ago, and since then she'd found herself seeking out the next person who was just little more broken, a little more lost, than she was. Neal had been the only person she'd allowed to touch her, and also the only person less damaged than her that she'd ever had sex with.

Maybe that was what had drawn Emma to Regina, so many years after swearing a sexual relationship off for good.

Some victims want to be hurt more, in sex, because they don't feel like they deserve the softer touch. Some seek unmitigated control over the encounter, like Emma. And some want to reclaim their bodies and their experience by undoing it, replacing hurt with love, or whatever closest to it that they can find.

Emma softly traced the lines left by years of silent pain and wrote a new story on Regina's body, which was so familiar and so different, now. Regina shivered and shook and said _yes_ so many times, in so many ways.

And oh, she sighed.

* * *

“You'll bring Henry right over, right?” Regina asked Emma. They were in her alabaster-and-black office, and the side table was covered in weirdo potion ingredients.

“Use the potion on yourself first,” Emma said, grimacing. “We've got to know what happened during that year you guys missed.”

“Other than unmoderated consumption of bear claws and pizza,” Regina said dryly, and she added one final ingredient. “Do you think I would ever endanger Henry by offering him a potion I had not yet tried?”

She'd been so pleased when Emma showed up at her office. Her eyes had stripped Emma down completely, quickly finding the potion vial in Emma's fist and probably as quickly deducing the reason Emma had come to her the night before.

Emma had crossed an unspoken boundary. She'd done what she'd never dared to before, and been unsure she wanted to - the line between sharing pleasure and possessing. The only thing to do about it was to ignore it, before all of Emma's boundaries were stripped down and she became just herself, worthless and so easily rejected. And who was she to try to possess Madam Mayor? It was absurd.

The potion flared green, and Regina looked satisfied. A look Emma knew well - Regina after she'd found exactly what she was looking for, Regina after a well-fought conquest. It was the look she gave Emma after the kiss but before Emma found her with her finger and the look transformed into raw hunger and need.

Regina brought the potion to her lips, and then a loud squall filled the room.

Regina put down the potion, to Emma's ashamed relief, and turned to the cradle where the fiend was flailing. She hushed her, which had no effect.

Emma felt herself drawn to them. It was just a few steps and she could stand beside Regina and maybe feel relief from the torment of distance and impending loss. Regina's eyes met hers as she picked the baby up in her jumper, tiny toes curling as she bawled.

Emma was cold and hopeless and wanted so, so much. “Will you hold her for a minute?” Regina murmured to her, and Emma nodded blankly. What had she been thinking, last night? Was she hoping that when Regina regained her memories, she would choose Emma over that baby, as well as its father? It wasn't going to disappear. If Emma wanted Regina, she'd have to tolerate this - this.

This. Regina settled the baby in Emma's arms, and Emma was confused by how warm and sweaty the tiny thing was. Her hair was plastered on her head, and her back arched along with her shriek. Emma kept her hands where Regina had placed them, under the baby’s butt and behind her back, and then the baby relaxed and settled against her like a tiny panda, gurgling.

Emma looked up at Regina, fairly certain that she'd already determined that Emma was incapable and would snatch her baby out of Emma's arms instantly.

She hadn't. She was looking at Emma with that baby and her eyes were nearly watering, nearly crinkling, nearly delighted, so close to what Emma craved that Emma clutched the baby closer and leaned into her, and Regina wrapped her arms around them both and their lips met.

Emma’s heart sang with it. Regina didn't pull away. Emma put her hand, now unneeded with Regina against the baby's back, on Regina's neck and kissed her, and Regina responded like she wanted this, too. Emma tried to pour her soul into the kiss, and Regina pulled away a little and Emma could see her hand on Regina's neck, glowing.

Regina reached up and took Emma's hand off her neck and kissed it, and the glow flared against her lips. Magic, it was magic, like in Neverland and afterward, Emma’s want transmitted through her skin and into Regina's, except now Regina pulled away and told her, “Emma, calm down.” The same thing as what happened last night.

Emma nodded and tried to quench the magic. How was it any different now? She brought her hand into a fist and apologized for her lack of control until the glow faded into shame.

“It is very -” Regina started, eyes still soft. And then she stopped. She stepped away, and Emma put her non-glowy hand back on the baby as Regina took the potion in one hand and sipped it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, I know this is kind of like cheating after you've already finished a story, but I decided I didn't totally buy the Regina in the old version of the story, so I've been working on a bunch of intermediary steps. For those who've read the end of the story already, it won't change - they're just getting there in a slightly different way this time. 
> 
> Chapter 3 onward are pretty much all new. I will start posting the old chapters with some changes after this, Chapter 5.
> 
> Hope this effort is not too unwelcome!

“So, what do you think of Storybrooke so far?” Emma asked Henry. Their room at Granny's was already a disaster-zone, and the takeout bag from their burritos was making its halting way down the precipitous pile of refuse on the small table by the window. Emma ate standing up, and Henry sat on his bed.

Henry shrugged. “It's fine, but having nothing to do is getting old pretty fast.”

“You miss school?” Emma asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I miss having friends,” Henry said, pouting. “When are we going back?”

“When I solve this case,” Emma told him. She threw out the wrapper and sat on her own bed facing him. “Regina invited us for dinner tomorrow at her place.” Even just the thought of it made Emma's heart stutter. “Whaddya say?”

Henry shrugged. “She's way cooler than anybody else you've introduced me to,” he said.

“I think so, too,” Emma said, grinning.

“You really did date, didn't you?”

“Nope,” Emma told him, bravely.

That night, she had to wait until nearly midnight for his snores to assure her that he would not notice her departure.

Early the next morning, before it was light, the alarm went off on Emma's phone. She flipped it off before the buzz turned into a ring and tried to slip out of bed, but Regina's grip around her stomach was like iron. Emma pried at her, feeling the panic of being restrained, and then the fiend in the cradle beside the bed mewed and Regina's grip loosened.

 _Crap-crap-crap,_ Emma thought, nearly grateful that Regina had apparently woken, kind of hoping that she wouldn't open her eyes, except the baby was such a situation.

The baby cawed again, and Emma got out of the bed and put on her shirt, creeping to the crib. Regina still hadn't stirred. Moonlight poured through the window, and the baby's cap had slipped off sometime in the night and her hair looked white where the moonlight touched her.

Emma reached out and rubbed her tummy with her clean hand, and she grabbed at Emma. “Hey, baby,” Emma whispered to her. “You're gonna go back to sleep now, because I don't want you ruining my escape. All right?”

The baby latched her hand around Emma's finger and brought it up to her mouth, and Emma waited for too long and was unexpectedly subjected to the most intense suckling on her pinkie. It wasn't terrible.

Before Emma knew it she had picked up the baby and slipped out of Regina's room. She closed the door behind them, tipping the baby up so that they could look at each other, holding her neck carefully. A faint smile lit the baby's face. “All right, little monster. We've got to have an understanding, right? Let me go first. I get that you're this brand new person, and I'm not saying you don't deserve, you know, being taken care of and stuff. But I got here first, and I might end up having to kill your dad, so I'm hoping you can be a really cool baby and - you know…” Emma didn't know. She tipped the baby up so that her face was against her shoulder. “Dammit. So they're calling you Lucy now, huh?” She tried bouncing, the motion feeling awkward. Lucy was quiet. She was a pretty great baby, except for the obvious part where she existed.

Regina was such a great mother, but Emma never thought she'd have another baby. Had it been an accident? How quickly did Regina find a lover in fairytale land? She'd never thought Regina wanted a baby. Had she? Maybe there was a horror story behind it all. Maybe something truly terrible happened in the Enchanted Forest, right after Regina had left Emma and Henry for dead.

Emma shouldn't hope for that. This baby was way too happy for that kind of shit. No way.

There was just some guy out there. The luckiest man on Earth. Emma clutched Lucy to her chest and nearly cried with frustration. Ten minutes later she’d completed her escape, with none but Lucy the wiser.

* * *

  
Regina opened the front door to her house, took one look at Emma's face, and asked her, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Emma said, ushering Henry through the door. “Thanks for inviting us to dinner?”

“Something happened for her case, but she won't tell me either,” Henry informed her, turning instinctively to allow Regina to pull off his winter coat.

“I ran into Neal,” Emma told Regina, whose eyes snapped instantly up to meet hers. “He's - his dad - too. Let's talk about it later.”

“Let's,” Regina said. “Henry, I haven't set the table yet. Will you?”

Henry nodded and turned to the dining room, before pausing and shaking his head. “Where’s the…”

“I'll help,” Emma told him.

“Thank you both,” Regina said sadly behind them.

During dinner, which was spaghetti bolognese, Henry informed Regina that Emma did not plan to leave Storybrooke. It was almost a question, like, “Should she?” Or, “Should  _we?”_

“Well,” Regina said delicately. “Storybrooke is a lovely town. Everyone knows everything and everyone, which can be a nice feeling. And the schools are quite good.”

“Oh,” was Henry's only comment. After dinner, Regina drew Henry into the living room and presented two comics to him.

 _“Jessica Jones,_ Volumes 34 and 35!” Henry literally jumped with excitement. “Holy crap, how did you know? I've been looking for these for  _years.”_

“Your mother told me,” Regina said. “It seems her grasp of eBay is limited.”

Emma raised an eyebrow at her, barely following the conversation. “You learned how to use a computer?” she asked Regina.

“Don't act so surprised. I've learned far more difficult things,” Regina told her, and Emma wasn't sure if she was talking about magic, or how to run a town, or maybe the workings of her own oven.

“I bet,” Emma said cheekily.

Regina looked at her for a long moment. “Henry, won't you give me and your mother a moment?”

She was going to ask about Neal. “Oh, actually… we've got something -” Emma said. “Granny’s sink is broken… we’d better get back now. Tomorrow?” She internally winced. She'd just invited herself to  dinner at Regina's. It wasn't like Henry was a free pass into this house. She had to stop doing this, if she was going to have any chance against Lucy's father.

Regina parried. “Certainly. Won't you come by my office tomorrow?”

At the door, Henry said, “Thanks again.” Regina helped him with his coat, and unexpectedly he turned and propelled himself into her arms. She returned the hug, and he whispered something to her.

Regina laughed and said, “Maybe she pays more attention than you think.” But she was frowning when she closed the door behind them.

“Got some secrets from your mom?” Emma asked him on the sidewalk.

“Nope,” Henry said, following quickly with, “If you're allowed to keep secrets, so am I.”

“I don't have any secrets. I'm an open book.” She opened her car door.

“That's why you've been sleeping in so late,” he said after he was buckled up.

“Dammit,” Emma said before she'd thought twice about it.

“You're visiting Regina at night,” he said smugly. “Come on, Mom. You've never looked at anybody like you do her. I  _knew_ you were a lesbian.”

Emma sighed and started the car engine. “There's no point in telling you you're wrong, but you're wrong.”

“I know I'm right,” Henry told her, and she left it at that.

Regina's lights were off when Emma rang her doorbell, but the door opened a moment later and Regina yanked her into the house, slamming the door behind her. Emma flinched away from the violence.

“Flying monkeys,” Regina hissed at her, indistinct in the darkness.

“Uh, yeah, that's what David said - there are some new people from the curse, and they - one of their friends turned into a flying monkey in the hospital.”

“Why didn't you tell me? It's the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“You know her?” Emma asked.

Regina rolled her eyes and sagged against the wall in the foyer. “A little,” she said. “So she's making people disappear.”

“Maybe she cast the curse, too,” Emma said. The potion in Regina's office hadn't worked. “You haven't seen her around town at all?”

“She's  _green,_ Emma,” Regina said to her, and then she was silent.

Emma looked at her in that blue silk bathrobe, the laugh-lines at her eyes, her perfectly pursed lips, and wondered when she got used to seeing Regina without makeup on. A long, long time ago. She'd known this woman for so long, and she'd changed so much, but the person underneath was still there.

Emma said, “I want to kiss you.”

“Kiss me, then,” Regina told her, and Emma kissed all the places on her face that she'd just looked at. Regina giggled, and Emma laughed, too, enamored by the silliness of it.

Regina pushed her away after a minute, tipping her head toward the study. “Tell me what happened with Neal.”

This was not the normal course of events. Emma went along with it, because this time she couldn't use Granny's broken sink as an excuse. “He's… he showed up at the hospital, and then… in the woods, um.” Emma collapsed on the couch, and Regina sat beside her. “I guess Gold absorbed him? He turned into Gold before my eyes, and then disappeared again.”

“Rumpelstiltskin is alive?” Regina's eyes glistened. She'd turned on one of the dim lights of the study.

Emma shrugged. “I don't know. Guess so. Neal asked me to separate him from his father, but - dunno, wanted to ask you.”

“Impossible to know what it was without being near him.”

“I think he's gone crazy,” Emma told her.

“Interesting.” Regina studied Emma. “You told Henry you were moving here?”

“That kid is just too smart for his own good. I figured, after you got his memories back, too, you know, we'd talk about it? It's barely like he can make any decisions right now at all.”

Regina's hand slipped into hers, between them on the couch. Also totally new, this touching and talking at the same time. “So you haven't decided?”

“Regina,” Emma said. “I wouldn't dream of taking him away from you. You're his mom, and I think he knows it even if he can't remember right now.”

Regina's eyes raked Emma's face, and then she kissed Emma fiercely, pulling Emma on top of her.

* * *

Snow visited the Sheriff's office the next morning and cornered Emma, bribing her with donuts and fresh coffee. She gushed about Regina's baby, and all the things she and Regina were doing together, since apparently their babies were going to be best friends and possibly get married. It was a jumbled, confusing mess, an unpleasant reminder of how secret her - thing - with Regina was, and how distant her hope still was.

And then Snow said, “Emma, you've grown so close to Regina. Won't you talk to her, help her understand that waiting is not the answer? Her soul mate,  _the father of her baby,_  is here, in Storybrooke. Don't you think she deserves happiness? Won't you help her find her happy ending?”


	6. Chapter 6

Regina texted her that night.  _ I was expecting your visit today at the office. Are you alright? _

Emma threw her phone behind the TV stand. Henry went to bed, and Emma drank a six pack of Goose Island IPAs and passed out drooling on the floor next to her bed.

Henry had fished out her phone when she woke up, and gave her concerned looks all morning - over breakfast, as she cleaned up the entire room, as she did their laundry for the first time since New York.

When everything was tidied, Emma sat down at the table and Henry took the seat across. 

“We're leaving, aren't we?” he said.

The thought hadn't fully formed in her mind until he said it. She thought about Neal, and the Merry Men who continued to disappear, and this Wicked Witch who Regina apparently had a history with. 

And then she thought about Robin Hood, and jolted toward the bathroom, where she threw up her entire breakfast.

“You've got to respond to Regina,” Henry informed her over the sound of the sink running. 

“I don't,” Emma told him. 

“She's worried about you. Jeez, what happened, Mom?”

“Nothing.” Emma stumbled out of the bathroom and into her bed. 

She'd accumulated four voicemails by that afternoon. She didn't look at them. She packed their bags into the trunk of the bug.

“What about your case?” Henry asked her in the stairwell. 

“Case is unsolvable,” Emma told him.

When she went back to the register to check out, Granny had just hung up her phone.

“Leaving?” Granny looked over her glasses at the two of them.

“Family emergency,” Emma said. Granny raised an eyebrow at her and she felt super dumb. “Foster family. How much do I owe?”

Regina was waiting for them in the courtyard, Lucy an indistinct bundle in her arms. Emma tried to brush around her, but Henry greeted her like she was his savior. 

The baby was passed to Henry, and Regina followed Emma swiftly to the bug. 

The door glowed purple and wouldn't open, and Emma was stuck with the key in the lock as Regina circled the bug toward her. 

Panic filled Emma's lungs. “OK, stop it,” she said. “I'll leave Henry here if he wants to stay. I can't. I won't live like this.” It was insanity, but it was the same as their first year, and Henry was safe with Regina. Emma was an imposter, and belonged alone.

“What  _ happened? _ Did Rumpelstiltskin do something? The Witch?”

“I've got an important case in New York,” Emma offered, giving up on the door and pulling her keys out of it. “It's just a few days probably and I'll be back to pick Henry up. We'll visit. Or I'll visit him, how's that?” 

“You're abandoning him,  _ again,” _ Regina said.

“This is unworkable! We can't share him if I live in New York.” She felt words threaten to bubble out of her throat, and swallowed them down. Thoughts that she had never fully articulated in her own mind. 

“I would rather you stayed in Storybrooke,” Regina told her. Her voice was muffled, and she avoided eye contact.

Maybe she didn't already know about Robin Hood? But wouldn't Mary Margaret have told her before she told Emma? Emma didn't know what to say.

Regina reached out and held Emma's hand, like she had on the couch, and her eyes were spellbinding. “Don't you know what - your magic means? Haven't you wondered why your hands glow like that?” Emma shook her head. “Do you remember the first time, in Neverland? Don't you want this?” Regina raised Emma’s hand to her lips.

“I do,” Emma whispered, tears threatening. 

“Stay here,” Regina asked her. 

Emma stared at her. She'd never thought she'd ever hear those words, especially not from the mayor. She looked at their hands, entwined between them, and wondered if she could kiss Regina playfully like she had two days ago, or if she could kiss Regina like Regina wanted to be kissed, and if she had ever been Regina's person, and if Regina was asking her to stay in Storybrooke because she was and she could and she did.

“Who is Robin Hood?” 

Regina's mouth fell open, and then she spun away. “Not you, too,” she groaned, and then her voice hardened. “Snow White.”

“She said he's your soulmate.” Emma forced the words out. “Is he?”

“Long ago, he may have been,” Regina admitted, turning back to Emma.

Emma barrelled through, bold and careless and empty. “Does he know about Lucy?” 

“He thinks he's her father. But he's not,” Regina said, lips a thin line.

“What does that even mean? You found your soul mate in the Enchanted Forest, Regina.” It didn't even hurt to say the words. “What are you waiting for? Go get your happy ending.”

“He is nothing to me,” Regina told her, and then rolled her eyes. “Less than nothing. He is extremely irritating, self-important and entitled, and does not understand the meaning of 'no.’”

Emma felt the blood rush to her head with lurching, intoxicating rage.  _ “Where is that dude?”  _ she spat. 

“He didn't touch me,” Regina clarified slowly. “Lucy is not his. How can I be more clear?”

“You don't know, though,” Emma said, her rage cooling. “You don't remember. Nobody remembers.”

“I do remember her conception.” Regina paused, and blew out a breath. “I had decided to tell you yesterday, but then you threw this little tantrum and I suppose this is how I will tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Lucy is -” Regina's voice caught. “She's your baby. It happened in Neverland.” 

Emma's ears began ringing. Her hangover returned in full force. She put an elbow on the bug, leaning into it and closing her eyes, and then she started laughing. 

She peeked at Regina, and Regina's scowl stopped her laughing instantly. “You're kidding,” Emma said.

“I am not.” Regina was stiff and regal and very, very serious. “The lack of control you have over your magic was bound to have consequences, Miss Swan. Now you are left with not just one, but two unwanted children.” 

_ That _ was a pretty big pill to swallow, laid out in such bare terms, and just so totally wrong, but also horrifying. “That's not -” Emma managed, slowly suffocating. She gasped for air. “I forced you - I didn't know -” 

“Emma,” Regina whispered, and then Emma was in her arms, and she was smoothing Emma’s hair and murmuring. Like she had the night Graham died, wordless soothing non-apologies. This time, she spoke. “You healed me. It couldn't have been more welcome.” 

Emma tried to understand. All she could remember was how her hand had glowed two nights ago inside Regina, and how Regina had pulled her out and waited until the glow had faded before they continued, and how long it had taken and how many kisses she'd given her before Regina's body responded to her again. All she could remember was Neverland, and how she'd loved so fiercely and so unquenchably, and had never had the courage to try to make that love her life instead of her secret. She'd never thought that her out-of-control feelings would ever make any difference in the real world, not if she hid everything from everyone except Regina. And then Regina had been the one who'd had to bear the brunt of it.  _ An unwanted child _ , she'd said. Fuck.

“It would never have worked if I did not feel the same,” Regina told her finally, and Emma gasped and nodded and kept on sobbing. She couldn't think anymore. She recognized the signs of a panic attack, but she couldn't control it. 

“Moms?” Henry said from the sidewalk, and then frowned. “Mom? Are you OK?”

Emma tried breathing deeply a few times, and Regina released her, still looking concerned and severe and clipped and sincere. 

“Not the reaction I was hoping for,” Regina told her. “Would you like to lie down?” 

“Yeah,” Emma said, glancing at Henry and wishing they could poof to Regina's. 

Regina ushered them back to Granny's, and up the stairs to their room. She guided Emma to the bed, and Emma laid down, ears ringing, and waited for the jumble to sort itself out.

It didn't. She just lay there and listened to Regina talk to Henry, mostly about taking care of Lucy because it seemed Henry's five-minute stint of being a big brother did not go swimmingly, and he had an endless stream of questions for her. 

A big brother. That was his sister. Emma got up and went over to them. She pulled up a chair Henry's other side and looked at the baby he kept holding. 

Her eyes were open and sparkling, and so blue. Not like Henry’s eyes. Maybe she'd change coloring over time. Emma hoped she would end up looking exactly like Regina. “Hey, baby,” she whispered. Regina was watching her, and Henry had turned toward her, too. “You’re the prettiest thing I've ever seen.” 

“Do you want to hold her?” Henry asked her.

“Yeah,” Emma said, and she leaned over and took the baby from him clumsily. She was too tiny, too fragile for Emma to even hold, and more precious than life itself. “Holy crap,” she whispered. 

_ Holy crap. _


	7. Chapter 7

Henry was whispering to Regina on the built-in bench in their room at Granny's, something about “I told her but…” and Regina was listening carefully to him. The light filtered through the window and lit their hair and skin, Regina’s darker than Henry’s. Their attitude was comfortable and relaxed, like Henry was used to confiding in Regina, and like he knew that Regina would listen and that he would always be right, to her.

Lucy's eyes had closed sometime in there, and Emma bent to kiss her forehead. Her baby skin was soft. Emma's baby, Regina had said. No fucking way.

She stirred, and then twisted in Emma's arms, rooting at her torso. Finding nothing, she began fussing, half-asleep. Emma hushed her, mind spinning. Regina wouldn't breastfeed here, right? Did Regina breastfeed at all? Yep, duh, Emma thought, remembering milk on her tongue and the feeling of being in someone else's place.

Except maybe it was her place. Not that it wasn't Regina's choice who she had in her bed, but Regina's body had changed because of what she had done with Emma, and her breasts were full because she was breastfeeding _Emma’s_ baby, and it was just vaguely possible that she hadn't actually slept with anyone but Emma and that nobody would swoop in and take this from Emma, as long as Emma didn't screw up and ruin it herself.

She hushed, and Lucy grabbed her hand like she had the other night, cooing delightedly. Emma cooed right back at her. “Yeah, that's nice,” Emma whispered. “Do you like me?”

Lucy released Emma's hand and turned her face again. “Regina?” Emma said, panicking.

Regina stood, straightening her skirt. “I have bottles back home,” she said, because naturally Regina would not be caught dead breastfeeding in public. “Would you both like to come to my house? We can make some food and get more comfortable.”

Henry shrugged, looking to Emma, and Emma nodded dumbly. They walked to the bug and Emma remembered that she didn't have a baby seat in the car, so yeah, they couldn't drive. Regina must have poofed.

It was just a few blocks away. Lucy was content for the first half of the walk, and then she twisted in Emma's arms and began fussing. Emma tried to tell her _Sorry,_ and _Don’t worry, you're going to have everything_ , and _You're not unwanted, you're so wanted,_ even though Emma could only speak for herself.

When they arrived at the mansion, Regina arranged Lucy in Emma's arms and heated a bottle in the kitchen, while Henry played on his gameboy, clearly waiting his turn. When Emma was settled with the baby, Regina took Henry into the kitchen, and the sound of Henry's happy chattering filled the house.

Lucy drank the entire bottle and seemed peeved that Emma didn't have more, but her baby stomach felt really full so Emma didn't feel bad about it. She turned Lucy upright and held her with a cloth on her shoulder like she vaguely remembered doing with Henry in Regina's fake memories.

She remembered the panic of having a newborn that never seemed to stop crying, and constantly feeling like she had done something terribly wrong with this fragile tiny being that relied entirely upon her. She remembered a woman telling her to talk to Henry, because it hadn't come naturally just to talk to a person who clearly couldn't understand what she was saying. She'd felt stiff and strange talking to Henry, before he became her everything, while he still felt like someone else's son.

She remembered grinding poverty and being utterly, completely alone, and then finally getting a job that wouldn't pay overtime for fifty hour weeks, in the middle of Austin which meant Emma had to drive an hour to get there, and an hour back, and she tried to remember how she did that with Henry and could only remember that she _didn't,_ that she couldn't have, she wouldn't have been able to work at all with no money to pay a babysitter. Her boss at that hellhole hadn't been kind, but she'd given Emma the tools she needed to actually live in the real world, and Emma had stayed even later than she'd needed to because after-hours she could use the computer and form, slowly, the idea of a different life for herself.

Lucy didn't burp, so Emma laid her on her back in her crib and offered her toys from the endless toy basket, until the baby was surrounded by a halo of rejected toys and Emma was crying again, overcome by the improbability of the moment. Lucy was more interested in Emma's face than any toy, and Emma finally picked her back up and laid her in a nest of baby blankets on the couch, propping herself up on her arms and continuing their earlier conversation in a whisper. Talking came easily to Emma. Maybe that was because there were so many things she wanted to tell Lucy.

Henry and Regina chattered in the kitchen. Their words were indecipherable but it sounded like home, in a way that Emma had before only incoherently longed for.  
  
Finally, Henry stomped into the living room and went back on his gameboy. Emma looked up at Regina in a daze, and Regina kissed her forehead and informed her that if Lucy was sleeping, she should be put in her crib.  
  
“Yeah, all right,” Emma mumbled, and Regina lifted Lucy off the couch. She held her so carefully but moved deftly, and Emma wondered if she would ever learn how to hold a baby or if she’d always be fumbling, slow and ungentle and inept.  
  
When Lucy was settled, Regina straightened and told Emma, “Henry helped make lasagna. It will be ready in a half hour. Will you help clean the dishes?”  
  
Emma followed Regina into the kitchen, and at the sink Regina put a sponge in Emma's hand and Emma wrapped her other arm around Regina and kissed her with focus. She tried without words to tell Regina everything.

 _An unwanted child._ She had to figure out how to tell Regina she was sorry for what her magic had done, and that Lucy was the best thing that had ever happened in Emma's life except for Henry and Regina. And that Emma was so grateful, and wanted only happiness for Regina.

But the thing about it was, when they touched, they didn't talk. Their bodies were set on a track separate from their minds, and there was no crossing that boundary, even if Neverland had been something totally different than anything before. 

Because when Regina was just the mayor, Emma could imagine that despite her flaws, she and Emma were the same thing to each other, and Regina was just cagey because she was abused and scarred, and that eventually everything might fall into place.

But it'd all been a lie. Maybe Regina had only slept with Emma as another way of getting revenge against Snow White, or maybe she had just been bored and Emma was the next most exciting visitor for Regina to terrorize. Emma had never wanted to know, although she did wonder, especially in the moments when the Evil Queen seemed to be replaced by the woman Emma had spent so many nights with. She wondered if it was Emma who had been vulnerable and mislead and used, or if Emma was the one who had used Regina. They'd never talked about what they were doing, but it had never felt hurtful or damaging, until it was.

It wasn't anything that Regina had done or said to Emma, though. It was everything that had happened before they even met, and Emma knew that she should blame Regina, but it hadn't ever felt like her Regina that had done those things.

And then there was Neverland. Emma hadn't been sure if Regina still wanted her, but she really, really had. And in Neverland, Emma knew Regina, finally. All the blank spaces seemed to have filled in. Regina had always known who Emma was, but for the first time, Emma knew who Regina was. Neverland had been an affirmation of desire, which Emma had now transformed into a question, “Can I have you?”, and maybe now Regina was trying to answer that question, or maybe she had during Emma’s mental breakdown at the car and, just for the icing on the cake, Emma couldn't remember what she'd said. She'd talked about Emma's glowing hands. She'd said it was welcome, but what was - the sex, or Lucy, or the magic?

Maybe this was the kind of shit that they needed to talk about. Emma released Regina's neck and pulled away a little, and Regina looked at her with something that almost looked like hesitation.

“You're thinking,” Regina observed, with her voice a little harsh, maybe like, “How dare you think?” or, “I wasn't sure you could do that.”

“Can we talk?” Emma whispered.

“We are,” Regina said. Her hand slid down Emma's arm to grip her hand, tightly. “Do you have something to say?”

Emma's voice stopped in her throat, and Regina turned, calling, “Henry, Emma and I are going to sit on the back porch. Get us if you need anything.”

“OK!” Henry said distractedly, and then Emma and Regina were seated on the wicker bench. Regina's hand was still tightly gripping Emma’s, but she was facing away, into the yard. Emma recognized the expanse of green grass - not only from her own experiences on it, but from her memories of Henry's childhood.

“I was worried maybe someone forced you, in the Enchanted Forest,” Emma whispered, trying to read Regina's expressionless face. “Did I?”

“No, Emma,” Regina told her, maybe frowning a little.

“It was an accident,” Emma repeated. “I swear I wasn't thinking that I wanted that, to do that to you.”

Regina's face cleared, and she looked at Emma. “You think you did what Neal did to you,” she said.

“Oh,” Emma said, and without thinking she pulled her hand away from Regina's. Regina released her. “I don't know.” Yes, that was exactly what was so bad about what Emma did, wasn't it? In prison, Emma couldn't get an abortion, and maybe in the Enchanted Forest it had been the same for Regina. Why else would Lucy be here?

“For some reason,” Regina started, and then paused. “I think the potion I took did not prevent her conception, but it did make her first week - challenging.”

“In Neverland?” Emma squeaked.

“When we moved the moon together, I used part of your magic to heal myself, so that she would stay with us.”

A tightness in Emma's chest released. “Oh,” she said. “You said she was unwanted.”

Regina actually laughed. “Is that what has made you so afraid? I did not mean that I didn't want her.”

“You meant I didn't? But I do,” Emma said quickly.

“You called her a _thing,”_ Regina reminded her, eyes dancing like she wasn't serious.

“I just thought...”

“You were jealous,” Regina said, still smiling.

This was going way better than Emma ever imagined it could. “I never thought I deserved to feel safe,” Emma blurted, flushing. “I think I'm safe with you.”

Regina threw the hair over her shoulder and put her chin on it, girlishly. “I have had many people tell me that they love me, and I think you can do better than that, Miss Swan.”

Emma stared at her hands. “I think you knew since the beginning,” she whispered.

“Just in Neverland,” Regina said, and her voice had changed. Emma snuck a look at her, and her eyes were dark. “Will you tell me what you wanted when you touched me then?”

Emma held her breath, searching the grass for the answer. “I wanted you to - to have everything you wanted, and to be happy, and, I guess, to come harder than you ever had,” she snuck a glance at Regina, and returned the small smile she found on her face. “And I wanted to be totally - dunno… together?”

“Melded,” Regina whispered. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed.

“That's what I wanted,” Regina told her. “I've felt that way for so long that I'm tired of being embarrassed about it. I used to hate you,” she added.

Emma took a deep breath. “Is that why you let me think Lucy was someone else's?”

Regina shrugged. “Not really.” She flashed Emma a brilliant grin. “I wasn't ready to give up both of my children to you without a fight.”

Emma frowned and nodded. “I'm really sorry about taking Henry away, after - you know.” She tried to think of something to say to explain it, but they were only excuses. “I'm - sorry,” she repeated.

Regina shrugged again. “I've had my vengeance, now,” she said, and that seemed to settle it for her.

“Guess so,” Emma agreed. Now what? Regina just looked at her.

Emma reached out and took Regina's hand in her own clammy hand. Regina intertwined their fingers, and then she stood, pulling Emma up with her. “You'll live here,” she said, and Emma nodded. “You'll tell your mother, and Henry. And then we're going to find that green-skinned menace and make this town safe again.”

“And then what?” Emma asked her, grateful for the road map.

“Maybe we should play the rest by ear,” Regina said dryly.

“Who are you, and what have you done with the mayor?” Emma asked her, and Regina smiled and flung her arms around Emma's shoulders.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to CoollatinB for the kick in the pants to just get this finished. Hopefully it flows ok considering it's basically a patchwork quilt.
> 
> Also, for those who were following the story before, this is essentially just a repost of the original end chapter.
> 
> Thanks to you all for reading!

Halfway through dinner, which Emma ate like she'd never had food before, Lucy began fussing in the next room. Emma sprung into action, weirdly happy to hear the baby's cries, but after three minutes of checking her diaper and trying to burp her, Lucy's stomach actually growled. The baby was bottomless pit of hunger, it seemed, and Emma had no idea where to go or what to do. She said, “Regina, I think she needs you.”   
  
Regina appeared in the threshold a moment later, taking Lucy from Emma. She sat on the couch, and Emma hovered. She wanted to be a part of this, too. She never wanted to let them go, either of them, ever.   
  
“Go to dinner,” Regina told her gently. “Our son is alone.”   
  
But Henry was done eating already. He pushed food around on his plate, and with Henry alone, Emma burst with the news of Regina's invitation into her house. But how would she explain such an abrupt change in the plan? 

Henry sighed and stood up. “I’m gonna go back to Granny’s. See you later?” His eyebrow twitched. 

“Oh, hey,” Emma said, trying blase. “Maybe you can go grab our bags from the car and bring them back. Regina and I were thinking it would be easier…”

Henry grinned. “I knew it.”

They approached the living room together, and Emma felt a little like Henry was her foster brother and they had both done something terrible that they couldn’t possibly conceal. She cleared her throat and knocked on the threshold, and Regina turned and said, “Come in, and stop scuffing your feet on the ground, both of you.”   
  
Lucy was covered up by a light blanket. Emma pushed Henry forward.   
  
“Hey, um, thanks for dinner,” Henry started. “And for letting us hang around your house. I'm going to go grab our bags from the car, ok?”   
  
“Oh, Henry,” Regina said. “I'm so glad. Your room is ready.” She was crying, again. Apparently Regina’s kryptonite was postpartum emotions of all kinds.   
  
Henry looked confused. “Great, cool. Bye!” The front door slammed a few moments later.   
  
“Hey,” Emma said to Regina when she had not stopped crying. “Thank you.”   
  
“Thank  _ you,” _ Regina told her, sniffling, and then Lucy gurgled from beneath the blanket and Emma sat down beside them with a sense of hope. Regina removed the blanket, and there was Lucy. Emma’s heart melted.   
  
“Hey, little one,” she cooed. Lucy found her eyes and smiled widely at her, and Emma leaned into Regina, putting her arm over Regina’s shoulders. 

“We are gonna make you the happiest baby that ever lived. You’re gonna have every single thing you ever wanted, and you’re never going to be scared, or hungry, or alone, ever.”   
  
Regina looked sidelong at Emma, and Emma was suddenly embarrassed. “As long as your mom says it’s OK,” she added.   
  
Regina laughed, but she still didn’t say anything. Emma was worried that Regina knew why Emma made those promises, because those were some intense promises to a baby who’d been born to a family who wanted her. To a mother who wanted her, not a family, but then there was Henry, who was her brother. Emma shook her head, totally confused.    
  
“Thank you for giving me the memories of raising Henry,” she whispered to Regina, and Regina finally looked at her in the eyes. “But they were your memories, not mine. I want the chance to actually do this. Is that OK with you?”   
  
Regina scoffed. “Why do you think I told you at all? If I was not offering her to you, I would have left her parentage a mystery.”   
  
“Oh,” Emma said. “Great.”

* * *

 

Henry unpacked his bags in his old room, putting everything back in place in the drawers that Emma had emptied for him so long ago. Regina enrolled him in school the next day, and went to the town hall for the first time since the curse had hit, and Emma was left to investigate this new curse and its doubtless nefarious but yet unknown caster - and to look for anyone with green skin in town.

Henry sat at the table with them and asked them why he had Hansel in his class at school, and also why he had to read A Wrinkle In Time again, since he'd already read it in New York last year. As if somehow those questions were the same. The transition was nearly seamless, even though he didn't have his memories yet.

It didn't seem to matter to the two of them, not when Regina was crouched with Henry over homework, or when Regina sent Henry off to school in the mornings, or when they whispered together on the couch while Emma learned to be a mother in the other room with an abruptly irate child.

Somehow, between resuming mayoral duties, taking care of a four-month-old, taking care of Emma (who felt like she could barely breathe without a hand on Regina at all times), and continuing to cook dinner nearly every night, Regina still found time to shower Henry with double-sized affection. She seemed totally beside herself with delight in having him back, and Emma couldn't help herself but feel like they were already a family. The family was just missing a few members still.

“You're 100% sure she really is my baby, Regina?” It had been two weeks. Emma hadn't told Snow yet. How could she, when everyone didn't have their memories yet? How could Regina be so sure? Maybe it was just Emma trying to ruin a good thing, but she didn't want to spill everything to her parents only to have it taken away from her when the curse broke.

“Don't doubt me,” Regina told her dangerously.   
  
“Why not? You said it yourself. That - would have required intention. I didn't intend… anything!”   
  
Regina covered her face with her hands, careful not to smudge her lipstick. “I took a potion that would make a non-magical pregnancy impossible. Lucy is four months old, and Pan’s curse hit thirteen months ago.” She brought her hands down onto the counter with a thump. “She looks like David Nolan, Emma, what the hell do you want from me?”   
  
Emma leaned over the counter, too. “Maybe the curse nullified the potion. Maybe Lucy is three months old - she's underweight, Whale said.” Whale had had a very long laugh all by himself when Emma had come along to that appointment. “And Robin Hood is -”   
  
“The man didn't even know my name a few weeks ago. And suddenly the entire town is convinced that he has some sort of claim over me, because of some pixie dust more than three decades ago. Do you know how irritating this is?”   
  
Emma didn't know what to say, so she just murmured something comforting and rubbed Regina's arms. Maybe she was being obstinate. Maybe she just didn't know how to be happy. Or maybe she just hadn't ever told her mom she was dating anyone before, and  _ this _ boyfriend could literally not be badder.   
  
Deep in the space between night and morning, but before they slept that night, Emma asked her, “Wouldn't you rather Lucy be his?”   
  
Regina groaned and worked her arm out of the covers to flip the bedside light back on. “How dense could you possibly be? Did you understand nothing of what I told you?”   
  
“What if he is your soulmate? You're willing to risk losing that? What if he will make you happy?”   
  
“I am happy.” Regina's hair was a mess, a dark, curly, tangled halo over her scowl. “I am -” She interrupted herself, pulling her legs under herself to sit up in bed. “You don't understand what I told you happened in Neverland. Let me explain it to you again.”   
  
Emma nodded, sitting up and placing her chin on her knee.   
  
“Your true love magic healed my body, and our love made life.”   
  
Emma squinted at her. “But what if it didn't happen like that, in Neverland? Doesn't it make more sense -”   
  
Regina growled in complete frustration. “Emma, when we returned to the Enchanted Forest, I was not in the position of sleeping with someone else. Your suspicion does nothing but prove to me that you - you continue to misunderstand what should already be obvious to you. Lucy was an accident, but could never have happened if we - if we were not - if we felt differently,” she finished lamely. “If I felt differently.”   
  
“Oh,” Emma said. A large grin spread over her face.  And then she dove into Regina, tackling her down into the bed and giving her short quick little kisses. “You love me.”   
  
“That's right,” Regina admitted between kisses. A few minutes later, she said, “That's it. That's the spot. Harder.”

* * *

  
The next day, they were ordering at Granny's when Zelena burst through the door.   
  
“Regina Mills,” she shouted. “Give me those damn slippers!”   
  
Regina spun to the door. “I don't have them! They stopped working when I returned home, and my father lost our estate, and then I became queen. They're gone!”   
  
Emma finally got it. “You're Dorothy?” she muttered to Regina. Lucy shrieked in her arms, pounding her fist on Emma's chest. She always hated it when Regina raised her voice. Emma kissed the bald spot above her ear and bounced her on her hip.   
  
And then one of the diner’s patrons stood. She had an enviable head of golden curls. “Elfie?”   
  
Zelena spun to find her voice. “Galinda! You're here!”   
  
“I heard you were in the Enchanted Forest,” the blonde said. Her voice sounded like an actual bird's voice, but Zelena seemed to be entranced by it. “I followed you there, but then the Charmings cast this curse and I was  trying to find you in this terrible town, but…”   
  
“The Charmings cast this curse?” Regina raised her eyebrow. “How do you remember everything?”   
  
Zelena and Galinda completely ignored her. “You went to find me?” Zelena asked her. “Across worlds? I thought you were angry with me about Fiyero.”   
  
“I was jealous of Fiyero,” Galinda said. “I realized that after five minutes with him.”   
  
“Jealous?” Zelena was breathless.   
  
Regina marched to them and turned them toward the back of the diner. “Have your embarrassing revelations in private, please,” she commanded them. Emma followed them, and Henry trailed after, pretending he wasn't listening.   
  
Regina pressed, “What has caused us to lose our memories, if the Charmings cast the curse?”   
  
Zelena said, “Will you lay off? We are talking.” She turned her shoulder to Regina.   
  
Galinda pushed Zelena out of the way. “Elfie, we should help them. I think it was just incompetence. I wasn't there, but the entire spell is incomplete. Snow White and Prince Charming were trying to come back here, I am guessing? Perhaps they conflated returning here with returning to the same time as you left, too, and since the spell couldn't make you travel in time, it simply removed your memories instead.”   
  
“And why haven't you forgotten the past year?” Regina asked them.   
  
Galinda shrugged. “The moment I realized I had forgotten a year, I ate some rosemary.”   
  
“Rosemary,” Regina scoffed. Lucy let out a loud shriek, and Regina took her from Emma's arms. “Let's go to the Charmings, and pick up some rosemary on the way.”   
  
“Sooo…” Henry said when they were outside the diner. “Elphaba, Galinda, Snow White, and Prince Charming, huh?”   
  
“Your remembrance potion is almost ready, Henry,” Regina told him. “But try some rosemary. Who knows.” Her voice trailed off in disgust.

 

* * *

  
“So there was no villain, after all,” Mary Margaret said, eyes overbrimming with tears. Her hand was clutching David's shirt.   
  
“Not this time,” Regina said. She blinked. “You really did this for me?”   
  
“For all of us,” David said quietly, his eyes boring into Emma's. “So that we could be a family again.”   
  
Emma looked self-consciously down at the baby in her lap. “So what's her real name, Regina?” she asked.   
  
Regina rolled her eyes. “Ruth.”


End file.
